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Is the attack helicopter dead?

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Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#521

Post by onepointsixC »

ceejayoz wrote: post #203
nostrademons wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Enriching uranium is within the capability of a nation-state the size of Ukraine. If Iran and North Korea can do it, Ukraine certainly can. Hell, even today, in the midst of a war, they have 8 operational reactors at 3 power plants, plus 2 under construction, one damaged and recently repaired, 6 at the Zaporizhzhia power plant in contested territory, and 4 in the decommissioned Chernobyl plant. Physical access to a n…

> Enriching uranium is within the capability of a nation-state the size of Ukraine. Sure. But standing up a program makes you an international pariah. “We’re keeping this” would have had a bit less uproar. > Physical access to a nuke does not let you disable the PAL. They are constructed so that they are embedded within the device, and cannot be disabled or altered without deconstructing significant parts of the warh…

The US invaded Iraq, because of the phantom prospect of a nuclear proliferation. A state which was just created and gave up Crimea without a shot fired in 2014 was not about to fight to keep nukes which were not theirs in the 90’s. With the combined forces of the West and Russia breathing down their necks there was zero chance that they would be able to keep them.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#522

Post by onepointsixC »

efitz wrote: post #416
sneed_chucker wrote: post #5

Part of a broader pattern in military technology right now. All weapon systems that consist of an expensive vehicle and an expensive-to-train crew are being re-evaluated against drones right now. If you're fighting a highly asymmetric conflict where your enemies can barely touch your expensive toys then it's less of a concern. If you're fighting near-peer it's a different story.

> All weapon systems that consist of an expensive vehicle and an expensive-to-train crew are being re-evaluated against drones right now. I don’t think that drones are necessarily the only answer to the “expensive weapons with expensive to train crews” problem. Expensive weapons lead to cost boondoggles and economic asymmetry, eg $10k in modified COTS drones can defeat $MM in conventional armored vehicles. We should…

And then a cheaper APS round disables your $10K drone, while a direct energy weapon for dollars of electricity can destroy swarms in one go. The car and mouse nature of weapons technology has always existed. Even at the advent of tanks there were anti tank weapons. That didn’t mean they were useless.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#523

Post by 15155 »

nradov wrote: post #496
michaelt wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We’re still in the very early stage of drone development for warfare and Ukraine is using a lot of civilian gear. Now the armed forces of the world are plowing their funding into R&D I expect them to develop quickly. I'm not sure that follows. Military drones like the Predator have been around for 30 years - at a cost of $30 million a drone. US military contractors are many things, but they're never cheap. And at t…

A DJI Mavic with a grenade has a flight time of only about 20 minutes, and can only operate at low attitude and close to the operator. The MQ-1 Predator can travel hundreds of km under satellite control and orbit for hours at medium altitude to provide persistent overwatch with advanced sensors. The cheap drones used in Ukraine are in no way a substitute for large, expensive drones like the Predator / Reaper. They ad…

0 of these heavy UAVs will be able to operate in contested airspace. This is why you no longer see Bayraktar footage anymore, and they aren't even remotely as heavy.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#524

Post by nradov »

norswap wrote: post #445
michaelt wrote: post #440

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We’re still in the very early stage of drone development for warfare and Ukraine is using a lot of civilian gear. Now the armed forces of the world are plowing their funding into R&D I expect them to develop quickly. I'm not sure that follows. Military drones like the Predator have been around for 30 years - at a cost of $30 million a drone. US military contractors are many things, but they're never cheap. And at t…

There's a new generation of defense contractors (Anduril, Ares) coming online that seem to promise order of magnitude improvement on the status quo.

It's good to have more options but Anduril and Ares are mostly a lot of hype. They won't achieve anything close to an order of magnitude improvement. Costs are largely driven by the laws of physics, and those are the same for everyone.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#525

Post by aguaviva »

hajile wrote: post #506
bluGill wrote: post #482

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Russia has some evperienced infantry but they have and are using a lot of untrain troops. Even their well train infantry is often still being use wrong for the training. Every military commentator who has credentials to believe they know something [as opposed to say me who doesn't] notes how poorly trained most russians are. This is not soviet war doctine which russia knows and worries nato, it is something new and n…

The only military commentators saying Russian troops are untrained are pretty ignorant and biased. Russia certainly sent untrained troops in the early part of the war, but most of them were by mistake and got recalled quickly. Russia recognized the need to train their troops (they only sent 100k troops and planned on an early peace that Boris Johnson scuttled). To buy training time, they hired Wagner. Wagner needed b…

This is in stark contrast to Ukraine where you get several videos every week from someone who was kidnapped off the streets and sent to die in the trenches 24-48 hours later.

You mean "sent to training". It definitely seems strange to suggest that Russia has a smooth, efficient "training pipeline", while Ukrainians are brutally sent "to die in the trenches". As if their onboarding process is in any way different, or newly trained Russian soldiers aren't also being sent to die in trenches.

We all know what war entails, so there's no need for weird, emotionally manipulative language like this.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#526

Post by nradov »

15155 wrote: post #523
nradov wrote: post #496

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A DJI Mavic with a grenade has a flight time of only about 20 minutes, and can only operate at low attitude and close to the operator. The MQ-1 Predator can travel hundreds of km under satellite control and orbit for hours at medium altitude to provide persistent overwatch with advanced sensors. The cheap drones used in Ukraine are in no way a substitute for large, expensive drones like the Predator / Reaper. They ad…

0 of these heavy UAVs will be able to operate in contested airspace. This is why you no longer see Bayraktar footage anymore, and they aren't even remotely as heavy.

Successor heavy UAVs such as the RQ-180 are specifically designed to operate in contested airspace. These are far more capable and survivable than anything Turkey can produce.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#527

Post by onepointsixC »

siliconc0w wrote: post #351
karaterobot wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Due to the nature of their deployment (ad hoc, improvised, crowd-sourced) swarms of quads in Ukraine didn't have much of a counter. Nobody had thought enough about it yet. All the work had gone into developing really sophisticated, cheap drones for consumer use, and strapping a bomb on them was all it took to weaponize that consumer technology. Nobody had spent a similar amount of time developing an equally sophistic…

Lasers and microwaves can be mitigated, jamming doesn't matter if they're autonomous(and can also be mitigated), bullets have a hard time with fast and stocastic movement. It's gonna be done on drone. And they can lie in wait in low power mode and navigate buildings so, yeah better hope you get all of them.

Drone on drone is very inefficient. There is plenty of work on going for anti drone capabilities for small caliber cannons, direct energy, and aps. I would not hand wave mitigation as defeating.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#528

Post by oneshtein »

ceejayoz wrote: post #502
oneshtein wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Кожний Учасник цього Договору в порядку здійснення свого державного суверенітету має право вийти з Договору, якщо він вирішить, що пов'язані зі змістом цього Договору виняткові обставини поставили під загрозу найвищі інтереси його країни. Про такий вихід він повідомляє за три місяці всіх Учасників Договору і Раду Безпеки Організації Об'єднаних Націй. В такому повідомленні має міститися заява про виняткові обставини,…

That's a separate agreement. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_on_the_Prohibition_of_N... . It cannot be withdrawn mid-conflict: https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/tpnw-2017/art... > Such withdrawal shall only take effect 12 months after the date of the receipt of the notification of withdrawal by the Depositary. If, however, on the expiry of that 12-month period, the withdrawing State Party is a party…

The treaty, signed by Ukraine:

https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/995_098#Text

Ukrainian law about joining the treaty:

https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/248/94-%D0%B2%D1%80#Text

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#529

Post by oneshtein »

ceejayoz wrote: post #507
oneshtein wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep, but thos ICBM's are developed by Ukraine and need regular (every 10 years) maintenance to be performed in Dnipro, Ukraine.

That's not the case for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-28_Sarmat . The one you describe - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R-36_(missile) - is being actively phased out.

Quote from Wikipedia about Sarmat:

> Despite the Russian claims that the missile is on 'combat alert', since its 2022 flight test, it has experienced four failed tests, the most recent on 21 September 2024

We have the short opportunity window, when Satana stopped to work and Sarmat is not working yet.

Re: Is the attack helicopter dead?

#530

Post by MarkMarine »

torginus wrote: post #400
MarkMarine wrote: post #218

In the war I fought in, there was a markedly different approach to combat air ops between even just the different service branches. The Army tended to use the Apache like it was a flying tank, hovering and delivering ordinance; the Marines (which is where I fought) flew as low and as quickly as possible even while sending rounds and hellfire missiles downrange. The marines were not losing aircraft in anywhere close t…

Honestly I don't want to sound like a smartass and second-guess you, but the main problem with attack helicopters imo is that they are expensive to buy and operate, going comfortably into lower-end jet fighter territory, so to justify their existence, they need to possess some indispensable qualities. I'm not sure what those are, but I think they probably have to do with the ablity to hover in place/land anywhere, a…

An AH-1Z costs about 4,500$ an hour to operate, a F-15E costs about 29,000$ an hour. Helicopters can operate from basically anywhere you can drive a fuel truck to, jets not so much.

You’re talking about a tilt rotor to replace a troop carrying helicopter, it’s a different role with different requirements.

The AH-1Z is more like the A-10 warthog than a traditional jet fighter, and in the wars we’ve been in recently serves a similar role, close air support. To the Marines on the ground, they are indispensable. The airframes were “just” (in the terms that make sense for an airframe that has been in service since the late 60s) upgraded to 4 rotor with a number of other updates.

Being able to literally point at the enemy and have the pilots see you and put ordinance where you are pointing… that is way way different than trying to call in strikes from jets or freaking arty as some people were saying.

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